The crackdown on street artists in St. Petersburg

Young singer Diana Loginova, known by the pseudonym Naoko, and two other members of a rock band were arrested for attracting large crowds of spectators and onlookers to listen to their songs, despite being recognised as “foreign agents”. They performed songs by the great singer-songwriter Bulat Okudžava, who died in the late 1990s and sang against the ‘cowardly war’.

St Petersburg (AsiaNews) - The St Petersburg court has ordered the arrest of street singer Diana Loginova, known by the pseudonym Naoko, who was detained along with two other members of the band StopTime, who were also arrested for two weeks pending trial.

They were initially charged with ‘discrediting the armed forces’ and then formally charged with ‘organising a mass gathering and movement of citizens in a public place, in violation of public order regulations’ for attracting many spectators and onlookers to listen to their songs, despite being recognised as ‘foreign agents’.

The decision to arrest the musicians was taken following a complaint by one of their colleagues, the 28-year-old St Petersburg rapper Mikhail Nikolaev, who had repeatedly expressed his hostility towards 18-year-old Naoko on social media platforms.

The girl is a student at the Rimsky-Korsakov Music Institute in the northern Russian capital, and she and her classmates often sing songs by artists long recognised as “inoagenty”, such as Zemfira and others, which are therefore effectively banned from being listened to and performed in public, despite being very popular in Russia. In St Petersburg, many groups of this kind perform on the streets, a tradition dating back to Soviet times, collecting donations from passers-by.

As some passers-by recount, “Naoko and her classmates were singing on Nevsky Prospekt [the central avenue of St Petersburg] when traffic had been diverted to other roads, so they weren't disturbing anyone”, but what they sang ‘reminded them of the feelings of another Russia, in other years’, and listening to these songs in wartime is very dangerous, evoking ‘feelings of joy and participation, not exactly of staunch patriotism’, the listeners assure us.

According to others, "almost all street bands sing Zemfira, Splin, Tequilajazz, Grebenšikov or Lagutenko, because this is the Russian capital of rock, which is why so many tourists come here and spend a lot of money,‘ right up to the final performances of the great singer-songwriter Bulat Okudžava, who died in the late 1990s and sang against the ’cowardly war," with refrains joined in by the voices of all Russians who know them by heart. The comments of many of those present repeated in street language ‘if you weren't able to take Kiev, go to... you and Ukraine’.

When Diana was led into court in handcuffs, she passed through two wings of dozens of her supporters, until only close relatives were allowed into the courtroom. The judge presented the charges brought by Nikolaev, who complained that “the crowd gathered prevented him from entering the underground station” on 13 October, when the group had not performed, soon corrected with other dates to strengthen the charge and without even summoning the informer as a witness. Attention towards the group has also increased due to the widespread dissemination of their performances on social media, with bystanders singing the songs of the “foreign agents” in chorus.

Several propagandists then commented on the videos, which garnered hundreds of thousands of likes, lashing out at Naoko because ‘she is a sick person who tries to infect others with her betrayal,’ and the people around her who dance and sing ‘don't know how to use their heads’ and don't want to realise what is happening at the borders and on the war front because ‘they are not used to thinking,’ They just dance and sing refrains they know by heart to ‘protest in the centre of St Petersburg against the bad uncle who drops bombs’.

A simple gathering around a girl singing was therefore considered a serious danger, almost an anti-patriotic riot, and now prosecutors in all regions are issuing orders to prevent people from meeting on the streets, even just to hum harmless songs by their favourite artists and bands.